A Homemade Valentine

Okay, I know this one is a bit late.  But, I didn’t want to post what I was working on until after I gave the gifts I created to their recipients.

Each year, I create little Valentine packages for our local nieces and nephews.  I will usually go to Target and pick-up a plastic bucket from the dollar aisle, add candy to it, et voila a completed valentine for the kiddos.  This year, the only thing I bought from Target was the candy.  I was determined to make my own receptacles for the goodies.

At home, I gathered my supplies:

• Scissors
• Colored paper (two shades of red, and a mint green for contrast)
• Letter stickers
• Tape
• Brown lunch bags (of which I have hundreds left over from the wedding)
• Cellophane bags (also wedding leftovers)

Then, I set to work.  I cut out multiple hearts in various sizes.  I would need enough for five bags (four for the nieces and nephews and one for my folks).

I arranged some hearts on a bag until I found the design I liked.  Then I taped them down.  I added letter stickers for the name of the recipient.  On a couple of the bags (for the older kids) I added a scrapbook sticker with a special quote.

An example of my first treat bag for our niece, Mary.

Each of the bags only took about five – ten minutes and were rather fun to create.  When they were done, I lined them up and started to divide the candy.  Some of the candy – like Jelly Beans and M&M’s – didn’t come in individual packaging.  So, those went into a cellophane bag.  I ended up adding some other colorful candy to the bag as shown below.

Valentine shades look sweet altogether.

I tied off each bag with a silver tie and added it to the brown bag.  The whole project could not have taken me more than an hour and as I said before was a lot of fun to work on.

Here are some shots of the final products.

Something special for Mary and Jacob.

Presents for my other Valentines, nephews Ryan, Ricky, and my folks.

So, what do you think?  Did you make any homemade Valentines?  What did you do?